If Bumbler Bush could manage to squeeze his Brownies into every nook & cranny of guv'mt, then why can't super-intellect Obama manage to do the same?

Couple of reasons.

1. Bush had a complacent and compliant Congress that allowed him to put these people into the positions (who usually knew nothing, were political treu followers, many from Bob Jones <ahem> University and similar <ahem> schools of <ahem> higher <ahem> edumacation).

2. The number of open positions was extreme and large due to almost a decade of Republican blockage of any reasonable people that Clinton could have put in place (This was and is still a Republican SOP).

3. Once in place the Bush appointees ignored the standard meritocracy system and started selecting only similar minds below them who then also selected similar minds on down. A few years of this and you have stuffed the department with political hacks who then are there for decades.

4. Obama now struggles with the same thing Clinton had to contend with times 10 with the Republicans who are still trying to both corrupt and make the departments totally dysfunctional.

You can destroy a meritocracy system quite quickly this way and it then takes decades to both flush the system of the moles, retire them, or fire them. The best move is to make a department of "Special Peoples", laterally move them, and then let then count sands of grain on the beach at Point Reyes, Oregon. A nice remote and very windy place where they can enjoy fog, wind, and cold.